Question

How can we quantify the mass of an electron when it is presumed to have no volume?

Answer 1

@Kainui & @kc_kennylau

Answer 2

Yep whether something has mass and whether something has volume are independent

Answer 3

We measure it lol

Answer 4

Whether something has mass is related to the Higg's Boson

Answer 5

If it reacts with the Higg's Boson, then it has mass

Answer 6

Have mass & have volume: well presumably every matter
Have mass & no volume: electrons
No mass & have volume: photon fts
No mass & no volume: void you don't say

Answer 7

Okay I have to go now

Answer 8

Well I think it's even a little easier than that. I think you can weigh something neutral very precisely and then ionize it to see how much mass it has gained/lost. Then doing some calculations with coulombic forces you can figure it out.

Answer 9

@kc_kennylau : The mass of the electron was deduced well before the concept of the Higg's boson was even postulated. The Higg's boson is the elementary God-like particle (aka the originator of all particles) but I don't think that something has to react with it to have mass - are you referring to its ability to deflect the Higg's boson as a measure of its mass? But this isn't a reaction, is it?

Answer 10

Woah even easier than what I describe! Have you heard of mass spectroscopy? Essentially it's the same process. By shooting an electron through a uniform magnetic field you can very easily deduce the mass since the forces acting on it will be the magnetic force and since F=ma we can easily look at how much centripital acceleration it has to find the mass. By setting up a detector we can see where it hits.

Answer 11

@ Kainui: Yes, mass spectroscopy is very common for measuring the masses of molecular ions. But I doubt its ability to resolve femtoscopic particles (such as an electron)? Also, I might be wrong here - I was under the impression that if one is able to quantify the mass of an elementary particle like the electron, then one should be able to contain it (i.e. the electron) and determine its location and even its apparent volume?

Answer 12

\[\bar F_B=q \bar v \ x \ \bar B\] The cross product of the velocity and and magnetic field multiplied by the charge of the particle is the force exerted by the magnetic field. Setting this equal to the mass and acceleration we get something that looks like this:

So F=ma and since it follows a nice circular path, we can easily deduce the mass if we know the charge of the electron.